Traditions
by StBridget
Summary: When Grace cancels on Danny, Steve steps in to help bake Christmas cookies. McDanno pre-slash/slash. Not related to my series.
1. Christmas

**Hawaii Five-0 is property of CBS and its creators.  
**

This little piece of fluff started as me trying to think of a way to adapt my NCIS McNozzo story Yule Log for McDanno. This is the turn my mind took, which is probably where I should have started in the first place. :) Enjoy!

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"No, Monkey, that's fine, I completely understand. Have a good time. I'll see you Christmas Eve." Detective Danny Williams hung up the phone and sighed. So much for his plans with his daughter, Grace, that weekend. Now he wouldn't see her until Christmas Eve.

Danny's partner, Lt. Commander Steve McGarrett, glanced over from his office to see Danny staring at his desk, looking dejected. Steve had seen him on the phone, and figured he'd gotten bad news. Probably his ex-wife, Rachel, messing with his visitation rights. That was usually what that look meant.

Steve went over to Danny's office to offer his support. "Bad news?"

Yeah, looks like I won't get to see Grace this weekend after all."

"Rachel cancel on you."

"No, actually, Grace did." Steve raised an eyebrow. He couldn't see Grace deliberately missing time with Danny. "She has an Aloha Girls party and sleepover," Danny explained. "She was so excited. How could I tell her I wanted to spend the time with her instead?"

"Yeah, I see what you mean. Do you get to see her next weekend?"

"No, Rachel and Stan already have plans. I won't get to see her until Christmas Eve."

"That's rough," Steve commiserated. "I know it's not the same, but you can come over and hang out at my place."

"You're right, it's not the same," Danny said. "No offense, but Grace and I were going to make Christmas cookies. It's our tradition."

Steve felt really bad for Danny. Not only would he not see his daughter, he'd miss out on some special memories. "I'll make Christmas cookies with you," Steve volunteered without thinking. God, what a stupid thing to say. Why on earth would Danny want to make cookies with him just because he couldn't make them with Grace?

That made Danny chuckle. "Somehow, babe, I can't see you making Christmas cookies."

"Hey, I've made Christmas cookies. I used to help my mom all the time."

Danny snorted. "And that was how many years ago?"

"Fine, if you don't want to take me up on my offer, then don't." Steve turned to leave.

"Wait," Danny said. Steve paused. "If you're serious about this, I think I'd like to."

Steve ignored the happy flutter in his stomach at Danny's answer. "I'm serious."

Danny grinned for the first time since he'd hung up the phone. "See you Saturday."

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Saturday, Steve opened the door to find Danny on his doorstep. The blond breezed into the house and headed for the kitchen. He began setting out ingredients—butter, sugar, flour, eggs, vanilla all went onto the island. Steve was pleased that he had everything, but it was short-lived. "Steve, where are your cookie cutters?"

"I don't have any," Steve replied.

"You don't?" Danny continued his search. "You don't have anything to decorate with, either."

"I didn't know I needed it."

"Obviously, my friend, you haven't made Christmas cookies before."

"I thought we already established that."

Danny was still opening cupboards. "Jesus, Steve, you don't even have cookie sheets! What self-respecting person doesn't have cookie sheets."

"We already went over this. I don't make cookies."

Danny slammed shut the final cupboard. "Clearly, we are going to have to go shopping."

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Half an hour later, Steve found himself at Target staring at a truly dizzying array of Christmas cookie supplies. He had no idea making Christmas cookies was so...involved. Overwhelmed, he reached for the first package of cookie cutters he found, but Danny stopped him. "Not that one."

Steve was baffled. "Why not?"

"It doesn't have a Santa. You have to have a Santa." Danny examined all the cookie cutter sets on display. "None of these have a Santa. How can none of these have a Santa?"

"Is it really that important?" Steve made the mistake of asking.

"Yes!"

"Okay, okay." Steve perused the shelves, finally spotting an individual Santa cookie cutter. "Here. Better?"

"Yes, much. I can't believe none of them had a Santa."

"What else do we need?" Steve prompted. He was immediately sorry he asked as Danny began throwing things in the cart. Food coloring, colored sugars, sprinkles all joined the cookie cutters. "Red hots or no red hots?" Danny asked.

"Uh..."

"Red hots," Danny decided, throwing them into the cart. "Now, let's see, do we need anything else?"

Steve sincerely hoped not. He wondered just how many cookies Danny was planning to bake. They seemed to have enough stuff to decorate an army of Santa Clauses. To Steve's relief, Danny headed off to check-out.

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Back home, Danny got to work, creaming butter and sugar, adding eggs, mixing the dry ingredients, and slowly adding them to the dough. Steve watched in awe. Danny seemed at home doing this. If Steve were left on his own, he was sure the kitchen would look like a disaster area—flour everywhere, broken egg shells littering the counter, a trail of sugar across the floor. Danny, however, avoided all that, mixing up what Steve was sure was the perfect cookie dough.

Steve and Danny relaxed on the couch, watching a game while the dough chilled. Steve was more content than he had been in a while. Sure, he and Danny hung out all the time, but sharing something so personal to Danny like this was almost intimate. Steve found himself hoping they could do this every Christmas. Maybe for other holidays, too. Christmas cookies didn't have to just be for Christmas, did they? Steve could see them making cookies for Easter, Halloween, even Valentine's Day. Steve imagined himself presenting a perfectly shaped and decorated heart cookie to Danny to be his Valentine. Whoa, wait a second? Where did that thought come from? Steve had to admit it wasn't the first time he'd had romantic thoughts about Danny, but he had to remind himself once more they had no basis in reality. Just because they were currently sharing a state of domestic bliss didn't mean they were anything more than friends.

Once the dough was chilled, Danny turned it out on a piece of waxed paper lightly dusted with flour. "Where's your rolling pin."

"I don't think I have one."

"You don't have a rolling pin? How can you possibly not have a rolling pin?"

"We've already gone over my lack of cookie-making supplies. Isn't there something else you can use?"

"Lucky for you, you Neanderthal, there is." Danny grabbed an empty beer bottle. "This will work fine."

Steve was dubious. "If you say so."

"Yes, I say so." Danny divided the dough in half and handed Steve a lump of dough and a beer bottle. "Here you go."

Steve stared at the blob in his hand. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

Danny was incredulous. "What are you supposed to do with it?! You're supposed to roll it out, that's what you're supposed to do with it! Jesus, you really are a novice at this, aren't you?"

Steve put the dough on his own piece of waxed paper and picked up the beer bottle. He could handle this. "How thick?"

"An eight of an inch."

Steve went to get a ruler. Danny watched him. "What are you doing?"

"Measuring. I want to make sure it's the right thickness."

"Oh, for heaven's sake." Danny was exasperated. "We're making Christmas cookies, not executing a tactical op. It doesn't have to be exact."

"They'll bake better that way," Steve pointed out.

Danny had no answer for that, so he turned his attention back to his own dough, starting to cut out shapes. Steve stopped him. "Not like that."

"Why not?"

"You're wasting dough. You'll get the maximum cookie to dough ratio if you do it like this." He arranged the cookie cutters on Danny's dough.

"Maybe I don't want to maximize my ratio! Maybe I just want to make Santa Clauses!"

"You're really hung up on Santa Claus, aren't you?"

Danny shoved Steve's hands away from his dough. "Go maximize your own ratio and leave me alone."

Steve shrugged. "Suit yourself." He expertly laid out his own pattern while Danny stubbornly set to making as many Santa Clauses as he could.

When they got down to the last bit of dough, Danny shaped it into a rough shape and put it on the cookie sheet. "What's that?" Steve asked.

"It's a seal."

"Wearing a Santa hat?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I made it for you, SuperSeal."

Steve wasn't sure whether to be touched or offended. He decided to go with the former. "Thank you."

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While the cookies baked, Danny set to making frosting, showing Steve how to add just the right amount of butter and milk to the powdered sugar to get the right consistency, then add just the right number of drops of food coloring for the perfect color. When they were done, Steve looked at all the bowls arranged on his counter. "Do we really need this much frosting?"

"Yes, we need this much frosting," Danny replied. "We have to make sure we have enough of each color."

"But do we need so many colors? I can see white and red and green, and even pink and yellow, but purple and blue? Those aren't Christmas colors."

"I like purple and blue. Ergo, we have purple and blue."

Steve gave in. He knew better than to argue with Danny.

The timer dinged, interrupting their bickering. Danny pulled a tray of golden brown cookies out of the oven. "Perfect. Now we'll let them cool a bit, then we can decorate them."

Once the cookies were cool, they set to decorating them. Steve selected a candy cane and carefully painted precisely spaced red and white stripes on it. Danny looked over from the Santa Claus he was decorating. "What's that?"

"A candy cane," Steve replied.

"I can see that. Why does it look like that?"

"Because that's what candy canes look like," Steve said in a "duh" tone.

"Ah, come on, have a little fun, step out of the box, get creative." Danny gestured at his Santa, which was sporting a bright blue hat and a purple beard. "Like this."

"I'm a traditionalist," Steve said.

"You're boring," Danny retorted. "Here, this is how a candy cane should look." He decorated it with blue and purple stripes (really, Danny was obsessed with blue and purple, Steve thought) and liberally sprinkled it with rainbow sprinkles. He waved it under Steve's nose. "See?"

Steve couldn't resist the temptation of the sugary confection so close to him and took a bite.

"Hey!" Danny exclaimed, "that's my cookie!"

Steve snatched it from Danny. "It's mine now."

"Give me back my cookie!"

Steve held it above his head, out of Danny's reach. "Come and get it."

Danny stalked towards him, and Steve hastily shoved the rest of the cookie in his mouth, chewing frantically. Steve expected that to be the end of it, but Danny kept moving determinedly towards him, forcing him to back up until his back was against the counter. Still Danny kept coming, pressing their bodies together. Before Steve could ask what Danny was doing, the blond fused their lips together, shoving his tongue into Steve's mouth and tracing the contours as if searching for bits of cookie.

Steve lost himself in the feeling, putting his arms around Danny and pulling him closer. He'd imagined this, but never thought it would happen. Maybe his earlier daydream wasn't so far-fetched after all.

At last the pulled apart, panting slightly and staring at each other with lust-filled eyes. Danny broke the silence first. "You owe me a cookie."


	2. Valentine's Day

A/N: So this was going to be a one-shot, but I forgot to mark it as complete, and Snowbeardolphin said "Can't wait to read the next chapter," so I got to thinking how I could expand it. This is a couple of months early, but *shrug*. Enjoy!

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Steve McGarrett stared in dismay at the lumpy...lump in his mixing bowl. There was just no other word for it. It certainly didn't look like the smooth ball of dough his partner, Danny Williams, had produced at Christmas time. He'd made it look so simple—mix the ingredients and come up with the perfect cookie dough. Somehow, it hadn't worked that way for Steve. His was lumpy, and bumpy, and streaked with flour and—were those eggshells? Shit. Not to mention his kitchen—and him—looked like a hurricane had blown through. Flour coated the counter and floor—and Steve—eggshells littered the counter as well, and there was a trail of sugar from the pantry to the bowl, with a large spill at the bowl. He'd had this daydream when they'd made cookies at Christmas of presenting Danny with a perfect heart-shaped cookie for Valentine's Day, but reality definitely wasn't living up to the dream. Time to call in reinforcements.

Danny's daughter, Grace, answered on the first ring. "Uncle Steve! What's wrong? Is Danno okay?"

"Yeah, Danno's fine," Steve reassured her. "I didn't mean to scare you. It's just. . .I need some help."

Grace sounded puzzled. "Help? With what?"

Steve stumbled over his words. "Well, you see, I wanted to make Danny something for Valentine's Day—cookies-and he made it look so easy, but it wasn't, and you help him and I thought. . .maybe you could help me?" He asked tentatively.

"Just a sec." He could hear her consulting with someone, probably her mom. "Do you want me to come over now? Mom can drop me off."

He sighed in relief. "That would be perfect."

When Grace arrived, she took one look at the kitchen and declared "You really made a mess, Uncle Steve."

"I know," he said. "Just help me fix it," he begged.

"There's a price," she said.

"What do you want? I'll give you anything if you just help me!"

"I want some cookies."

"You can have as many as you want," Steve promised. "Unless. . .you're not planning to give them to some boy, are you? I don't think Danny would like that."

"Relax, they're for my class, though if a certain someone got a special cookie I wouldn't mind. . ." Grace grinned at the look on Steve's face. "Relax, I'm just kidding. No boys, I promise." She surveyed the array of fresh ingredients on the island. "Looks like you've got everything. Let's get started." She picked up the bowl with Steve's failed attempt. "What in the world is this?"

"Cookie dough?" Steve replied hesitantly.

"No wonder you need help." She picked up the recipe lying on the counter. "First, we cream the butter and sugar." She carefully measured sugar into a clean bowl, not spilling a drop, Steve noticed enviously. She picked up the butter, looked at it, knocked it against the counter with a resounding 'thud', and looked at it again in bewilderment. "Uncle Steve, this butter is frozen."

"Well, yeah, it keeps longer that way."

"You can't make cookies with frozen butter! It has to be soft! No wonder your dough didn't turn out right! Haven't you ever made cookies before?"

She sounded so like Danny Steve would have been amused if her tirade hadn't been directed at him. "Not really. We made cookies at Christmas, but Danny did most of the work."

Grace let out a put-upon sigh. "Looks like I'm going to be doing most of it this time." She put the butter in a small bowl and put it in the microwave, heating it in five-second bursts until it was okay for creaming. Then she added it to the sugar and creamed them together. "Now for the eggs. Do you want to add the eggs, Uncle Steve?"

"I'd better not. I kind of got shells in it the last time."

"Oh, Uncle Steve." Grace expertly cracked the eggs. Steve really was jealous of her kitchen skills. He wondered if he'd ever be able to make this look as easy as she and Danny did. Grace added the other ingredients while Steve looked on, and soon they had a bowl of—much better looking—cookie dough. "Now, let's get the decorating materials ready while this chills."

"Okay." Steve went to his cupboards and started pulling out decorating supplies. Grace looked on, amused.

"You sure have a lot of stuff, Uncle Steve."

Steve shrugged. "Most of it's left over from Christmas. Danny picked it out."

"Danno does tend to go overboard, doesn't he?" She picked out the red food coloring. "This is all we need, I think. We can use it to make both red and pink."

"You don't want purple and blue?" Steve asked, remembering Danny's insistence on those colors at Christmas.

"Nah, I'm a traditionalist, not like Danno. I think he gets a little carried away," she said confidentially.

Steve laughed. "Yeah, he does. Traditional's good with me."

Steve got down a bowl to make frosting, carefully measuring out powdered sugar. Unfortunately, it started pouring way too fast, and he ended up with way more than he intended. "That's okay," Grace assured him. "We'll just have extra."

Steve measured out milk and dumped it in. "No, Uncle Steve," Grace scolded. "You have to add it _slowly_. Now it's too thin."

"But I can just add more powdered sugar, right?" He reached for the box, but Grace stopped him.

"I think you'd better let me, Uncle Steve." She carefully added more sugar until the frosting was the right consistency, then divided it between three bowls. She handed Steve a bowl and the bottle of food coloring. "Now add it _one drop at a time,_ Uncle Steve."

Steve did as she said, relieved when he got a beautiful pink. Then he added more food coloring to the other bowl until he got red. "Very good, Uncle Steve!" Grace praised.

By then the dough was ready, and Steve moved with more confidence, dividing it in two and placing it on pieces of floured waxed paper. He carefully rolled the dough out to precisely one-eighth of an inch, grateful he'd actually thought to get a rolling pin. It wouldn't do to let Grace see him rolling out the dough with a beer bottle like they'd had to do at Christmas. He then carefully used the cookie cutter he'd bought to cut out heart shapes, making sure to space them so as to get as many cookies as possible out of the dough. "You're good at this part, Uncle Steve."

"Thanks. It's just geometry. I'm good at that. It's baking I need some help with," he said ruefully.

"You're doing fine," Grace said. "I can't wait to decorate them!"

Once the cookies were cool, they set to decorating them. Grace threw herself into the decorating with the same enthusiasm Danny did, though her cookies were a lot tamer, even if she did tend to go a little heavy on the sprinkles and the decorating sugar. Steve was a little more deliberate, taking more time with his cookies, especially one in particular.

"Is that Danno's?" Grace asked, watching him carefully spread pink frosting over the cookie.

"Yeah. I thought I'd put red hots around the edges. Do you think he'd like that?"

"Oh, yes, Danno loves red hots!"

Steve carefully placed red hots around the edge of the cookie and studied it critically. It still wasn't quite right. He thought a moment, then carefully traced another heart in the center with a knife, covering it carefully with red colored sugar. "There, how does that look?"

"Perfect! Danno will love it!"

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Steve stood outside Danny's door, cookie carefully concealed behind his back, heart pounding as he waited for Danny to open the door.

"Steve! What are you doing here?" Danny asked, surprised to see him. "I thought you were busy."

"I was, but I'm done now. I have something for you," Steve said nervously.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"This." Steve held out the cookie. "Will you be my Valentine?"

"You made me a cookie?"

"I thought it would make up for the one I stole at Christmas. I hope you like it."

"I love it." Danny put an arm around Steve's neck and kissed him soundly. "And I would love to be your Valentine. Happy Valentine's Day, Steve."

Steve kissed him back. "Happy Valentine's Day, Danno."


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